Boots in the Oven

Is My Blog Burning XVI: Son-In-Law Eggs

Are those deep fried eggs in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Hello, peoples!  We’re really excited to be joining in on our first IMBB, started over a year ago by Alberto over at Il Forno … so thankee.

Eggs… versatile, wonderful, tasty, occasionally gross when mishandled.  We eat a fair amount of eggs here in the Pants household, what with Mr. Pants being a vegetarian/not vegan. 

He thought for a while about what kind of eggs to use for this is my blog burning (Ostrich?  Dog?) and what to do with them (Scramble?  Chug?) and eventually decided to go Thai.

We like our dinners with a generous helping of thinly veiled threats of bodily harm.  This dish is called Khai Luuk Kheuy or Son-in-law eggs.  When doing some research on the recipe, we came across several stories as to how they got their name.  One, however, was clearly the best and therefore, in our minds, obviously the true one. 

It goes like this:  a young man in a newly wed couple is being less than chivalrous to his bride.  His behavior does not go unnoticed.  So on a visit to his new mother-in-law’s place, she puts him in check by serving this dish.  Her innuendo is clear.  Straighten up and get some ack-right or your, let’s say, marital tackle, is going to be replacing these suspiciously similarly sized eggs the next time I make this recipe.  Oh yeah.  You do not want to mess with that.

Luckily for us, we just wanted dinner. 

I must say that I’ve never had anything quite like this dish.  Not being Scottish, I have never had the urge to fry an already boiled egg.  Boy was I missing out, because this stuff is seriously tasty.  While some of the flavor components might seem a bit foreign to me, Mr. Whitey McAnglo, all together this meal is easy to make and well worth the effort.

Start by boiling six eggs from an animal of your choosing and then peel them and set them aside to cool.  You should under hard boil your eggs by a few minutes since you’ll be cooking them again later.

Then mix together about a third of a cup each of tamarind juice, palm sugar, and fish sauce, then adjust it to taste.  I used more tamarind because I love that bright twang it has.  Add it all to a sauce pan and let it simmer until it reduces to a nice shiny syrup. It will seem too salty at first, but keep in mind that it’ll be seasoning all of the eggs and whatnot.

Technical Note: You can get the juice by steeping 2 or 3 peeled tamarind in a half cup of hot water and then straining out the seeds. If you can’t find it fresh you can use tamarind paste instead. If you can’t find palm sugar you can use dark brown sugar (maybe with a touch of honey).  If you can’t find fish sauce then you’re just up Poop Creek because you really need the fish sauce.

Meanwhile, mince a couple of big shallots, three or four cloves of garlic, and four to ten thai chilies depending on your tolerance for chemical burn.  (Here at the Pants household numbness and burning are not cues to head to the doctor, but rather signs of a successful meal.) 

Ok, now the fun part.  Get out your favorite wok and pour in a couple of inches of whatever frying oil strikes your fancy.  Get that bad boy hot.  You want it to be about 350-360ºF.  Grab your eggs (no funny business now) and carefully lay them in the oil.  Leave them alone for a couple minutes until you see a nice golden brown line just above the oil level.  Then turn them over and leave them for a minute or two more.  When they’re brown and kind of wrinkly all over, take them out to drain on paper towels or a cooling rack.

Now pour off all but a couple teaspoons of the oil (or you can do this in a different pan if you don’t feel like juggling a wok full of scalding lipids – babies.) Throw in the shallot/garlic/chili mix and fry it up just until some of the pieces start to get real crispy like.

Slice the eggs in half, pour on the luscious sauce, spoon on the shallot stuff and garnish it all with cilantro and more freakin’ peppers!  Good Lawd.  Serve it with rice and maybe some Asiany greens and that is one threat to my manhood that I will eat any day of the week.

To check out the other great IMBB submissions peruse here, and thanks to Viv at Seattle Bon Vivant for hosting this edition of Is My Blog Burning.

Mme. and L. Pants

Buy me Some Peanuts, or Maybe a Beer

Some of my fonder memories growing up are of the times my dad took me and li’l bro to see a baseball game, first at Comiskey and then at new Comiskey, otherwise known as “YourNameHereStadium”.  I remember how my dad actually used to keep score in those little boxes on page 73 of the program, and no matter how many times he’d explain what he was doing, I could never understand the little symbols.

I had my first taste of beer at a baseball game... a White Sox game, circa 1987 (?).  I asked my dad for a sip of whatever it was he was drinking, and he said “sure, but only a taste.”  I tasted, and oh, BITTERBITTERBITTER UGH.  I still remember how he laughed and said “Doesn’t taste like pop, eh?”  (Yeah, we’re Midwesterners.  Wanna fight about it?)  Then, he turned to my friend Ari’s dad and said “Brewed through a horse.”  It was several days before I got that one.

Our tickets at these games, and other major league games I’ve been to, were for the most part up in the nosebleed area, where you didn’t want to lean too far forward for fear you’d go tumbling down, down, down, and land right in the nachos of some drunk shirtless guy in section 117.

That’s what made where we went on Saturday night so darn cool.  There’s a perk that comes with my job... and that perk is free tickets to see the Round Rock Express minor league baseball team once a year.  It’s through a company with whom we do a lot of business.

So, on Saturday, we packed up our hats and our sunscreen and braved the 96 degree heat to go see the Express take on the Omaha Royals.   We had great seats, right on the third base line, in the shade the whole time.  We were 15 rows back from the dugout.

This is a really nice stadium, built in 2000 with Dell money, before the dotcom bubble went splat.  It’s a really nice place to get a beer and see a game.  And, if we wanted to buy the tickets, they’d only be $10.  Beat that, Cubbies!

We had a great time.  Had two $6 beers apiece, and stayed through the end.  Saw some truly horrendous pitching, which meant like 5 home runs (it seemed), and watched the Express get their patooties handed to them, 12-5.  What a great time.

GirliePants

Francophiles, Untie!

Contrary to what our government wants you to think, France is actually a great place.  Unfortunately, it is a bit far away and they speak some crazy language so popping in for dinner can be a bit of an ordeal. Never fear. A few key pieces of produce and couple of eggs later and you too can have a 35 hour work week and questionable hygiene (I really do like the French, I swear).

I was amazed at how tasty and easy a classic French salad with endive, pear, walnut, and blue cheese is.  Seriously, it’s just endives, pears, walnuts – ok so it’s pretty self explanatory.  Just peel the leaves off some endives and give them a wash.  Then toast some walnut pieces.  Slice a pear and toss the pieces in the vinaigrette so they don’t brown.  Throw it all together and crumble some blue cheese on top.  Spoon on a little more dressing and let the good times roll.

Food addict note:  Traditionally, I hear, one would use Roquefort in this, but we used a raw Bleu D’Auvergne that made my knees weak with piquant, creamy deliciousness.  What? I said it was a food addict note.

Oh right, the dressing.  This is not a Thousand Island kind of situation.  When we were in France, they seemed to have one national dressing.  It’s a kind of rich, mild, mustard thing that was executed with vastly varying degrees of success.  When it was good, it was real good, but when it was bad - ughn, it still makes me shudder.

Lucky for you, this is the perfect dressing for this salad and this recipe has been personally vetted by the lovely and talented Mme. Pants, the Wonder Dumplings, and the rest of the Pants family (yeah, that’s just me.  You got something to say?).

The original version of this dressing (and meal) hails from the Barefoot Contessa herself, Ina Garten.

Take a tablespoon and a half of white wine or Champagne vinegar, a little less than a teaspoon of good mustard and a raw egg yolk and whisk them together.  (“I’m gonna get salmonella. I’m gonna get salmonella.” You bunch of whiners.  If you’re eating stuff raw just make sure it’s fresh, then store and handle it properly.  No worries.)

Throw in some salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar then whisk in extra virgin olive oil to taste- anywhere from two to eight tablespoons. That’s it. Easy, see?

For the full Provencal effect, you can have this with some herb baked eggs.  I’ll give you the speedy rundown for this simple dish.

Get some oven-proof dishes.  Turn on your broiler.  Put a little cream and butter in each dish and slap them under the broiler for 3 minutes.  While that’s heating, crack two or three eggs per person in separate bowls.  Mince some garlic and some of your favorite fresh herbs (we used thyme, parsley, basil, and lavender).

Pull out the hot dishes.  Pour in the eggs.  Add salt and pepper. Toss in the garlic and herb mix.  Everything goes back under the broiler for one to six minutes depending on how you like your eggs.  Poof, it’s France. 

Serve it all with a hunk of toasted sour dough bread and some sparkling wine and it doesn’t get much better. 

Damn that’s good.

L. Pants

Zoot Soup Riot

Pop quiz!  What do two food obsessed people do to celebrate their first anniversary?  “Badminton?” you ask.  “Spelunking.” you might say.  No, sillies!  We go out and find some tasty and interesting eats, yo.

Austin has a lot of great restaurants that we haven’t been to (a problem we’re slowly attempting to rectify).  One of them though, Zoot, has an intriguing little deal where the chef offers not one, but two tasting menus.  Neither of us had ever had the pleasure of being brought a succession of tiny courses designed to not only complement one another, but also pair divinely with multiple, equally miniaturized, glasses of wine.  No time like the present, so we took the fancy-shamncy plunge.

(If you want to check out a guy who’s made tasting menus into practically a full contact sport, look him up at tastingmenu.  Unfortunately, envy doesn’t go with my suit. Oh well.)

Zoot has kind of a New American thing going on with an emphasis on seasonal ingredients.  Everything was delicious, and overall we had a fantastic time, so any criticism is purely nitpicky and minor in nature – but that’s how we get our jollies. Because we’re bitter, sanctimonious jerkwads.

The two tasting menus were the Chef’s(c) and the Farmer’s(f), the latter being vegetarian. They each had six courses.  Since I’m a linear thinker, I’ll take them in order from the top.

First were rabbit rillettes(c) and a blue cheese broccoli soup(f).  The rillettes were moist and lipsmackable with an awesome tangy-sweet sherry gastrique (Sherry Gastrique would be a great porn name).  The soup was served chilled and had an excellent texture and savoriness that got you revved up for the meal to come.  It was served with a truffled crème fraiche that seemed kind of fancy for fancy’s sake.  I know it’s tempting to throw a truffly sop to vegetarians, but maybe a blued crème fraiche would have tied the theme together a bit more – especially since the soup’s promised blue-ness really stayed in the background.

Second came the salads.  Not to dis right out of the gates, but this was the weakest link in both menus.  Mme. Pants had greens and daikon with a red pepper vinaigrette(c).  It was good but exuberantly dressed. I had a baby spinach salad with feta buttermilk dressing(f).  It was tasty and all, but it looked a bit like diner-salad-deconstructed.  Maybe it’s my fault for not being more into tiny piles of cucumber and radish.  Props though, for getting the greenery from the local Bluebonnet Farms.  (I say that our lack of excitement re: the salads was because L. Pants’ salads are tasty beyond reason, so it blinds us to salads that are merely good. – Girlie)

Happily, the third courses were firmly back on track.  The lovely lady was served escolar on a fines herbes risotto(c).  The escolar was perfectly done.  The fillet showed off these attractive concentric rings in the presentation.  The risotto was also spot on with a rich creaminess accented by some fun little preserved lemon dealies (they called it nage, but dealies works for me).            

I had an heirloom tomato bruscetta(f) that was surprisingly fresh tasting for something that’s been passed down through the generations.  Ok.  I’m sorry.  Moving on.  The highlight of this very straightforward dish was the ricotta that Zoot makes in-house.  It had a super rich mouthfeel and an earthy sweetness that you just don’t come by in the store-bought stuff.  For such nice tomatoes, though, they sure did chop them into itty-bitty little pieces.

Copious joy, for we have reached the entrees.  Both were delectable.  The meatful one was an eensy lamb chop with quinoa and demi-glace.  The lamb couldn’t have been cooked better.  Perfectly seared outside and just a hair above rare in the moist vibrant center.  The tiny crunchy vegetables were quite complimentary, but Mme. Pants felt the demi-glace was a little overpowering.

The farmer’s menu featured a wheatberry risotto with a parsley emulsion.  It was a totally different experience from the earlier risotto.  The wheatberry has a lower starch level, so it wasn’t all about a creaminess. Instead, it had a fantastic toothsome texture that was enhanced by the verdurous parsley flavor.  The whole dish said Spring all over it. Yum.

Next, behold the majesty of cheese.  It’s hard to go into detail, since there are only so many superlatives.  Suffice it to say that they were all f*ing fantastic; but what else do you expect to hear from a cheese-whore like me?  Fine, stop begging - I’ll just tell you what they were real quick.  From mild to pungent: Brillat Savarin(brie like), Buches de Causses(a tangy goat cheese), and Crater Lake Blue(mmmm…).

Finally, dessert.  Not that we needed it, not that that stopped us.  We had an enticing variety to choose from, but our server nudged us gently (and perceptively) towards the crème caramel.  He said that they’d only perfected it a few days ago, which seemed like an odd thing to say, but whatever, because he totally wasn’t lying.  It was a rich, velvety custard with a crisp, mouthwatering caramel top.  We didn’t want to finish the whole thing, but the laws of men and gods demanded that it be so.

Zoot

509 Hearn Street

Austin, TX 78703

(512) 477-6535 

What the @#$%?

Generally, I like cats.  I'm a big cat fan.  In fact Mme. Pants and I live with two adorable fatbots, The Wonder Dumplings.  However.  Recently I have discovered a very enertaining and often quite funny website called KittenWar. 

It's great. It pits two (or sometimes small groups) of cats or kittens against each other to see which is the cutest (or fugliest).  Then it keeps stats on each cat to show how many times it has won or lost and to whom.  Ok, so it's great for wasting time.

Anyway, most of the cats fall within the normal range of cat physiology, but then yesterday, I found what could only be a cruel trick of God.

Or maybe it's photoshoped.  Someone please tell me it's photoshopped.  If not, well... maybe it will grow into it.  Good luck little dude.

L. Pants

Yo' Momma's So Easy, They Call Her a Savory Panini.

Look, I never said my Yo’ Mama jokes were particularly good, but in the tradition of forced segues everywhere, I will tell you what is particularly good.  That’s right, paninis (paninii?).  If you’re ever in need of some hot, fast, crispy, chewy, delicious, sweet or savory eats –then these are for you.

It’s just like making a sandwich but the panini press (or two cast iron skillets) just gives it a deep golden brown and squeezes all of the flavors and juices into one another. The heat also melts any cheese you may have included and there ain’t nothing wrong with that.

I guess if there is a secret, the one thing that is pretty crucial is to use a good stout bread.  One that can really hold it’s own under pressure if you know what I’m saying.  If you go the white wonder bread route you’ll end up with some kind of thin little emasculated crakery thing.  That’s just sad. 

Also, the heat can dry things out a bit so a nice moist condiment of some sort will keep everything well lubricated.  Oh and just lightly oil the outside –you’re trying to toast it, not deep fry it people.

Here’s my take on a classic panini combo.  It’s fig, prosciutto, and fresh mozzarella.  I made a mustard, fig and ginger spread, put it all together, brushed the outside with some olive oil, threw it in the press- à voilà, a perfect, but not French, panini.

Now is probably a good time to mention that roasted green beans are freaking amazing.  Here they are substituted for chips or fries, but they make a delicious side dish or snack pretty much any time.  Toss them with a little olive oil, into a 500° oven for fifteen minutes, finish with a squeeze of lemon and a dash of salt, then try not to eat off your own fingers. 

Fast, easy, and a hell of a lot better than McBurgerHut.  No excuses. 

L. Pants